This disclosure relates generally to meat processing equipment for deboning or otherwise separating meat, such as beef, poultry, fish, and pork from bone, cartilage, or sinew. More particularly, the disclosure is directed to a meat processor having a slotted and segmented separation chamber.
Meat processing machines typically have a generally cylindrical and perforated separation chamber to separate meat. In operation, bone-in meat is placed or fed into the interior volume of the separation chamber. An auger or similar device then forcibly drives the meat from the feed end of the separation chamber to the bone discharge end. As the meat is forced through the separation chamber, meat is stripped from the bone and passed through the perforations and into a meat collector, whereupon the meat is customarily used as filler and for the making of lunchmeat, meat patties, canned meat, and sausage. Recently, separation chambers have been designed for removing meat from a bone, but doing so in a manner that allows the meat to be used as a primary meat source rather than simply as filler.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,089 to Dutaud discloses a separation chamber for a meat deboning machine that is formed of a number of plate members that each includes an arrangement of teeth and recesses on both sides of the plate. The plates are assembled about a screw shaft in a nested arrangement in which the teeth of one plate rest substantially within the grooves of an adjacent plate. The plates are spaced from one another by a number of spacers placed between adjacent plates, which provide an opening between the teeth and grooves of adjacent plates when assembled, and through which meat is forced by the screw shaft. The plates and spacers are held in the nested arrangement by a nut and bolt arrangement inserted through the plates.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,340,184 to Poss discloses an apparatus for mechanical separation of a combination of meat and bone into useful fractions. The apparatus includes a separator screen surrounding a feed screw. The separation screen consists of an alternating arrangement of plain discs and annular discs. The discs are clamped tightly in a face-to-face arrangement by tie rods and placed within an arrangement of circumferentially spaced longitudinal bars that rest within rectangular slots in the respective discs. Each face in the configured discs is cut away to provide an opening between adjacent pairs of discs. The configured discs also contain a slotted annular ring along the interior edge of the disc. The inner ring defines slots oriented at an angle of about 150 degrees to the radius of the ring. In operation, the screw forces the meat against blunt edges of the slots to remove the meat from bones and to provide movement of the meat through the slots and openings between the discs for collection.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,899 to Prosenbauer describes a meat separator for separating meat from a meat and bone mass by the action of a press piston pressing against a counter-piston within a press cavity. The cavity is defined by a pair of perforated filters placed in abutting relationship within the cavity. Each filter comprises a thin-walled mantle terminating in a connecting flange at one end. The flange properly positions each filter within the cavity by engaging a stationary wall on either side of the cavity. The mantles of each filter consist of circumferential ribs spaced about the length of the mantle. In between each rib, passage openings are equally spaced about the circumference of the filter. When the meat and bone mass is compressed within the filters by the pistons, the meat is forced outward through the passage opening for collection by a collecting cylinder disposed about the filters.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,926 to Richburg discloses a cylindrical sieve for a meat deboning machine. The sieve includes stacked sieve rings that form the body of the sieve. Each ring includes major lands and minor lands circumferentially spaced about one surface of the ring that form grooves between adjacent lands. The major lands include openings through which elongated elements are inserted. The elongated elements comprise an alignment means for stacking the rings in an abutting relationship to form the sieve in which all the lands in each ring face the same direction. The elongated elements are received within a pair of end caps disposed at each end of the sieve to secure the sieve within the deboning machine. Each of the lands includes a bonding agent placed on the abutting surface of the land that fills any voids in the lands to avoid accumulation of meat or bacteria within the voids, and bonds adjacent rings to one another. When stacked and bonded to form the sieve, the grooves between adjacent lands form slots through which the meat removed from the bone is forced.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,809 to Paoli describes a desinewing machine for producing coarse-textured meat. The machine has a housing which encloses a rotor used to strip sinew from incoming meat. The rotor is generally cylindrical in shape and has several cutting elements defined about its exterior surface by a spiraling helical groove. At the entrance to the rotor, the helical groove forms cutting elements which have a much larger cutting surface than cutting elements located further downstream along the rotor. Holes are located in a circumferentially spaced arrangement about the entire length of the rotor, wherein the arrangement includes an equally spaced ring of holes between each pair of adjacent cutting surfaces. In operation, meat and sinew dropped into the machine contacts the cutting surfaces of the exterior of the rotor. The cutting surfaces interact with a pressure bar that has a plurality of cutting surfaces spaced on a panel concentrically shaped to the exterior of the rotor to remove the sinew from the meat. The meat then passes through the openings in the rotor into the interior of the rotor. While the sinew is pushed downstream by the action of the cutting surfaces of the rotor on the sinew, the meat located inside the rotor is urged upstream towards a number of holes disposed in a disc forming the upstream end of the rotor. The meat is urged in this direction by the counter rotation of a frustoconical sleeve disposed within the rotor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,813,909 to Goldston describes a slotted separation chamber for a compression-type deboning machine. The slotted separation chamber is constructed to have a plurality of elongated slots each formed of a pair of spaced apart side walls presenting interior side edges, and formed of opposing arcuate end walls presenting interior arcuate end edges. The slots are oriented such that side edges lie at an angle relative to the central axis of the separation chamber so as to be tilted in the direction of rotation of a cooperating auger. The side and end edges cooperate with the fluted turns of the auger to shave or peel away the meat from the bone to produce a coarser and highly textured separated product.
Notwithstanding these and other advancements made in the art, there remains a need for separation chambers that are configurable to have variably sized feed and discharge ends. Additionally, there remains a need for separation chambers with variable lengths. Moreover, there is a need in the art for separation chambers that allow variability in the arrangement of the meat cutting slots or perforations.